


Schrödinger's Girlfriend

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 13:45:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15196043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: She’s dying to open the box; she’s not afraid of the cat being dead (though she wouldn’t be happy if it were)—she’s afraid there was no cat to begin with, and that the box has nothing but stagnant air.





	Schrödinger's Girlfriend

**Author's Note:**

> happy yuri july here's some semilinear ldr angst
> 
> lmk if the timeline makes sense

Masako’s always been an easily frustrated person, but that’s probably why she’s attuned to the different flavors of her own frustrations. There’s the steep mounting pressure of time closing in on her like the sides of a garbage compactor when grades are due and she’s marking everything down in her book; there’s the bone-deep ache of getting knocked out in the Winter Cup because the other team was smarter or luckier or more overwhelming; there’s the sharp flare like fire in a shaft when her motorcycle just won’t fucking start. The flavor that marks her frustration with being far away from Alex has changed, mutated along the way as their relationship has grown. There’s still the same aftertaste, though, a salty bitterness like microwave popcorn chased with coffee that Masako can’t wash from her throat.

It sticks to her mouth when she wakes up in the middle of the night, Alex lying asleep halfway on top of her. Masako’s not in the position to move her neck where she is, but she eases over to the left until she can. The streetlight outside filters in through the window at an angle, casting light across Alex, her face halfway smushed in the sheets. Masako hates that she wants to wake her up, have a few extra minutes of settling around in bed tangling up the sheets and kicking each other—that that is worth just dropping back to bed, or Alex’s rest. Relationships are a compromise but a few extra minutes awake together should feel like a cup of water poured into a sea, not a cup of water poured into a puddle. The frustration mounts her like a child atop a carousel horse, grubby fingers squeezing her around the middle. If it keeps her awake, she’ll get to be with Alex. Better that than one of the three-hundred-plus nights she sleeps in this bed alone. But no, sleep now, wake up fresh in the morning, be awake when Alex is awake.

Masako slides back under the covers; Alex makes a noise and rolls over.

“Go back to sleep,” Masako whispers.

“Kay,” says Alex, rolling back over on top of Masako.

She’s warm; her stomach is firm. The tips of her hair scratch the insides of Masako’s wrists. She’s snoring no less than a few minutes later, and Masako is frustrated all over again.

It had been easier to condemn the frustration when they’d first started dating, a question that had crackled in Alex’s voice like cheap paper noisemakers over the Skype connection. Masako had agreed, and they’d started dating without having kissed, touched, shared physical space alone. The worst part of Masako had said their connection wasn’t strong enough to push all of these feelings they’d kept hovering at either end across. It would be easier for Alex to apologize and get together with one of those interchangeably-cute friends of hers who lived in her time zone and could come over without planning and passports and spoke Alex’s native language. (No, the same does not apply to Masako; her friends are cute but there are some bridges that can’t be crossed because they don’t exist, and she can’t turn around and apply her own situation to Alex, either. Her friends are like sisters, forged in bloody arms pressed together and motorcycles in formation on snowy night roads.)

The wavering insecurity gives way to a longing and a feeling of artificiality. Her feelings had tasted like the plastic wrap stuck to the icing on a snack cake that you almost accidentally swallow, curling and crinkling under your tongue. Her emotions were real, she felt them like the stab of a sword, a punch to the face, the shock of looking up at the scoreboard to see her team’s losing by fifty points. She can feel Alex’s feelings, too, not skin to skin but mouth to ear, finger to phone screen to phone screen to eyes. That’s something.

It’s pointless to wonder if it’s all not real, if Masako’s feeling her own feelings reflected back, extrapolating too much. She’s no whimsical dreamer, but she can’t know; she can’t confirm until she’s touched and kissed Alex and heard her laugh out loud. She’s dying to open the box; she’s not afraid of the cat being dead (though she wouldn’t be happy if it were)—she’s afraid there was no cat to begin with, and that the box has nothing but stagnant air.

She’s been longing for something she doesn’t even know, from someone she knows very well; it all seem as if she’d be complaining too much to say it out loud. She knows Alex; she trusts Alex. She trusts herself, too, but can she say that with a straight face?

“Come see me,” she says to the mirror, as practice.

The mirror stares back at her, its face her own. Her cheeks are red near the back; she tugs her hair forward. They’ve talked about wanting this before, not concretely, but Alex is the one who says that someday never comes. Masako's doubts and frustrations are not the principle reasons; her doubts and frustrations stem from the only reason she wants this. She wants it because she wants it; she wants to be around her own fucking girlfriend.

She shuts out the voice in her head that says this shouldn’t be a big step in the relationship; it’s not for traditional couples but what the fuck is traditional about this anyway? Alex is a former student’s former teacher whom she’d gotten to really know on the internet. Alex is a woman who’s from and lives in another country. Masako logs onto Skype, straightening her hair in the reflection on her screen. The ringtone begins to sound; Masako clicks.

“Hi,” says Alex.

“I want to see you,” says Masako.

Alex’s face does not retract. She blinks and reaches out; the webcam wobbles.

“No, come see me,” says Masako, and that gets the point across.

“When?” says Alex.

“As soon as you can,” says Masako. “I’ll make time.”

It’s as simple as a handful of words, crumbs in the bottom of a potato chip bag, and for a brief few weeks the frustration gives way to tension and nerves, only to surface again with stronger ingredients in the last few days of Alex’s visit. The awareness of their time disappearing builds up, a migraine of frustration in her head. There is so much that she said she’d do with Alex and so much she wants to, but stuffing it all in won't do shit. Neither will thinking about what they’re not doing.

The first coach Masako had had on the national team was a yeller. He’d always snapped at her and the other players when they’d go up and down the court to quit thinking about what they were going to do when they were ten down with five to go and focus on right now so they’d be the ones in the lead. Whether he’d meant to warn against self-fulfilling prophecies or tell them in his own way to keep their damn heads in the game or just flex his own muscles is irrelevant; Masako hadn’t known at the time and, after coaching for most of her adult life, she still doesn’t. Intended lesson or no, his voice comes back to her now. Focus right now. (She doesn’t want to be thinking about some old dude when she’s with Alex, though.)

The frustration slowly turns closer to the color of regret, for the things they didn’t do and the moments not well-spent, that Masako tries to kick aside whenever possible. Soon, someday, they’ll work things out; they’ll live together, in the same country if not the same city and the same apartment. As radical as that kind of change would be, plans for it move along slower than traffic at half past five on the Friday of a holiday weekend.

“I miss you,” Masako says.

She can picture Alex’s face at the other end of the phone line. Not the way she looks when she’s on the phone, but when Masako talks to her face-to-face, looking up at Alex in the scattered light through her kitchen curtains. She can picture Alex’s glasses falling down on her nose, and her eyes wide open.

“I miss you, too.”

It would be better to hear those words from Alex’s mouth and see the smile develop on her lips like a Polaroid, and feel their toes touch. Imagination is fourth-rate, at least, Masako’s is. So for now her frustration sits like clouds full of thunder pressing on the air, her hair curling in the humidity, It will not pass; she will push through it and she’ll pull Alex through by the tough and knotted rope that stretches between them.

**Author's Note:**

> i felt really good writing this. words flowed and i wasn't making the charas feel and do things for the sake of anything other than what would make sense for them in this situation. it's not perfect but it's enough of what i want it to be.


End file.
